Augusta, Georgia

Augusta is a city-county on the eastern border of Georgia. It was founded in 1736 on the orders of Governor James Oglethorpe, who sent troops to create a first line of defense against potential Spanish or French invasion along the upper Savannah River. They named the town in honor of Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, the wife of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and it served as the state capital from 1785 to 1795. It developed rapidly as a market town and a center of the local slave trade, and it was a center of activities during Reconstruction and a site of civil rights demonstrations during the mid-20th century. In 2017, Augusta had a population of 197,166 people.